An email drops into inbox of The Voice from A Liberal Democrat Organiser Who Wishes To Remain Anonymous: “I have no wish for anything I write to reflect badly on the local party. But on the flipside, there’s little recognition within the wider party as to what our role actually involves”. Riso Monkey – The Voice salutes you and all your kind…

8:30am
Early photoshoot in front of some new Council Housing we’re constructing. The Councillor I’m snapping is harangued by a local resident about the noise and disturbance caused by the construction. Resident then starts complaining that her little Eileen hasn’t got a house on the social yet. Resident does not appear to make the connection between a lack of social housing and building new ones.

9:00am
Office. Coffee. Switch on computer, and watch the email counter tick upwards.

9:30am
Make final adjustments to local Council ward newsletter, the Focus. This involves switching a photo on one story for another not actually related to the story, but which apparently makes the Councillor look more majestic.

10:00am
Intern arrives. I wave a hand at the kettle, and start setting up the big printing engine, the Riso, to produce the Focus. It beeps recalcitrantly for a while, until I give it a swift kick.

10:30am
PPC calls. Apparently another Post Office has been targeted for closure. The PPC is bright and chirpy, unlike me, she never suffers from Post Office Compassion Fatigue. I start designing some flyers for the afternoon’s protest.

11:00am
Intern warns me that the Riso has stopped working. I walk over and glare at it. It sparks into life.

11:30am
Phone is cut off, owing to non-payment of bills. It’s no-one’s fault, it’s just the arcane rules of the local party’s account, which only allows cheques to be made out at a conclave of all the Exec on a moonless night on [DELETED], in the blood of a virgin goat. It does mean that no-one can misuse funds, or indeed use them for that matter. I contact BT on my mobile and coax them into giving us a week’s extension.

12 noon
Lunch. My unsatisfying Tesco sandwich is interrupted by a phone call on our reconnected line from the Councillor whose Focus we’re doing. Apparently they want to change ‘I insist’ to the less controversial ‘I think we should insist’. I tell them we’ve already gone to print. They ask how many we’ve done. In my mind’s eye, I consign another ream of paper to the Great Recycling Bin in the sky.

12:30pm
Printing flyers for the PO protest. The printer is emitting that strange metallic smoke again. It smells of bad fireworks, and makes my eyes sting slightly.

1:00pm
Catch bus to threatened PO. The PPC has been working the area and has already gathered a small crowd. I arrange them all neatly, and make another effort to achieve the impossible – a photo in which all the participant’s eyes are open.

1:30pm
The intern calls me on my mobile. The Riso has stopped working again. I tell him to hold the phone up to the machine. I yell, ‘GET BACK TO WORK, YOU LITTLE SOD!’ down the phoneline. The Riso springs into life.

2:00pm
Back in the office. I create a very pretty multi-coloured chart of all our activities in the upcoming months, sigh, and replace it with a list of dates. Comprehension beats prettiness, I’ve been forced to learn.

3:00pm
A member of the public calls up to abuse me for putting literature about local events through his letterbox. I ignore him sympathetically for ten minutes while responding to emails. Somehow, by the end, he seems mollified.

3:30pm
One of the machines is broken. I fix it. I think they take it in turns to screw up around this time of day.

4:00pm
One of the Councillors calls up asking for 200 letters for tomorrow morning. They’re very apologetic about it being so last-minute, to the point that I’m reassuring them that it’s my job to do this sort of thing.

5:00pm
Intern leaves. I salute him.

5:30pm
Send copy of the drafted letter to Councillor. Apparently it needs minor alterations.

6:30pm
Minor alterations have taken an hour. I start printing, ducking my head under the smoke.

7:00pm
Discover stuffing machine has broken down. Resist temptation to say ‘Bugger this’ and walk out of door.

stupid:00pm
Go home. Buy takeaway. Sleep.